Should there be a college football playoff? Yes. Basically because one or two, maybe even three teams get left out almost every year, and even though we probably know they arn't as good as the two teams at the top, wouldn't it be nice to find out on the field? Who can argue with more football?
I've heard all the arguments on a playoff vs. the current system. The one thing I like from the current system is how much emphasis is placed on the regular season. Without a doubt, there is no debate that the college football regular season is the most exciting in all of sports. Even if a team is not chasing a championship, they (and the fan base) have something invested in each game because of the rivalries and bragging rights. That is something that is the utmost of importance to maintain.
So what is the best way to do a playoff? Initially, I thought taking the 11 conference champions and then 5 at-large teams would be best. A lot of people like this solution. It would offer 4 rounds, with the first round to be played at the higher seeds home field. The main reason I don't like this is you're basically making this college basketball where the regular season is dwarfed to nothing. In basketball, does anyone really pay much attention to a January matchup between #1 Duke vs. #4 Wake Forest? Other than college basketball junkies, not that many people are going to make plans to watch because the outcome really has almost no meaning other than a measuring stick for those teams. So I don't want #2 Texas vs. #3 Oklahoma to turn into just another game since we all know they will make it into the playoffs. The Red River Shootout IS A PLAYOFF GAME. That is round one, it is just in October instead of December. And sure, the 16 team field lets even the little guys have a chance, but that model is just too big.
The next suggestion is 8 teams. You could do this one several ways. You could just let the BCS formula pick the top 8 teams and play on from there, or you could pick 6 BCS conference champs and 2 at-large. Or you could take all of the conference champions (11), give the top 5 a bye and let the bottom 6 duke it out in a play-in round to advance to the round of 8. I used to be in favor of the conference champions, but really all that does it dumb down the regular season as well. Maybe not to the extent of a 16-team playoff, but each team would only focus on its conference. Games like Florida St. vs. Florida and USC vs. Notre Dame would have a whole lot less meaning. Plus, coaches wouldn't want to get their players hurt playing in a game without meaning, especially the week before the conference championship game. If an 8-team playoff was going to be the case, it would be best to have the BCS formula pick the top 8 teams because at least teams will play out their seasons. For example, if you only took conference champions and Florida was 9-0 (7-0 in the SEC), and had already wrapped up the SEC East, they could cruise and lose 2 out of the last 3 games without any worries like the Colts do every year in the NFL. But at least having to be in the top 8 would force them to play those games the best they can knowing they need to maintain that rank. I like this scenario because it would be really exciting. You could play the first round on New Year's Day. Then play the semi-finals about 10-11 days later, and the championship game during the off week before the Superbowl. You could use the BCS bowl locations as hosts of each game, rotating each year. What I don't like about this is the logistics of having a school's fans purchasing airline tickets, game tickets, hotel reservations, etc. for possibly 3 games in one month at distant locations. Sure, the same fans might not attend each game, but many schools probably don't have enough fans to fill 40,000 seats 3 times over with those parameters. The other thing I don't like is that the 7th & 8th teams, maybe even the 6th probably don't deserve a shot because they have 2, maybe 3 losses. But with this you would be assured of giving the teams that deserve a shot, a shot at the title.
The next scenario is one I got from Phil Steele, who I know has given it a lot of thought. A four team playoff. The first two games would be just after all of the bowl games, and then the championship game would be during the off week before the Superbowl. This means only two games for fans to attend, and you would know the top 4 teams deserve to be there. You probably have a 50% chance of having the #4 team with 2 losses, but I think it would be worth it for the years when there are 4 undefeated teams. When there are 5 undefeated teams, then I don't know what to say other than sorry, bad luck this year. You could have a play-in game but is that fair for the #4 team, they may really be #2? I would just leave it at 4. And I would make a stipulation that you have to win your conference. That might get a little hazy like when Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech all had 7-1 conference records, but each conference needs to make up a tie-breaker and have a conference championship game. My suggestion in the case of that 3-way tie would be to come to a pre-determined location on the Monday following the final weekend and play it out. Play a round-robin of overtime rules until somebody wins.
The final scenario is a plus-one. Many people advocate for this. The idea is that after all the bowls you come up with the top 2 teams and play a championship game. The idea behind this is that teams who play a weaker schedule will either be weeded out or rise to the front once they play a top-tier team in the bowl. This is a good idea except that it could, and in most cases probably would create more chaos when there are still 3 undefeated teams, or 3 really good 1-loss teams, or just no clear cut two teams. How do you decide? It may have been clear before the bowls but now it is worse. I don't like this idea for those reasons.
So my first choice is the 4-team playoff, but I could go for the 8-team playoff too. Both of them would keep the importance on the regular season, but ultimately I think the 4-team playoff has less drawbacks.
JB
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